We started, nevertheless, wound up again as to our spirits for the excursion, and thoroughly enjoying a twenty-miles drive through lovely scenery. It was so late, however, when we arrived near Croft Ambrey, that we had but time that afternoon for a walk towards it, and up a lesser hill, and so back to our quiet little inn, close to the Lugg. How one enjoys the meals on these occasions! That broiled ham and eggs, and home-brewed beer, in the little sanded room; what venison and champagne refection could for a moment compare with them? It is the charm of novelty, I suppose, in scene and room and everything. Of course, it is easy to understand the zest that attends a dish of trout and grayling of your own catching. But to return to Croft Ambrey. Next day we were prevented by other engagements from fulfilling that with our hill. And, since we were to start quite early on the morrow, the chance of my ascending it seemed over when I retired to my homely but clean little bedroom at night. However, I had not quite given the thing up. It was in my mind, could I but contrive to wake at five in the morning, to sally forth, while great part of the world was asleep, and explore the peaks, passes, and glaciers of that noble hill. I am not good at waking, unless called. But--and this seems an illustration of how the mind controls the body--it is certain that if you go to sleep with a strong desire or sense of duty concerning the waking at a certain hour, you not unfrequently, after a careful fumbling under the pillow, find your watch demonstrating pretty nearly the time that your mind had appointed. This may be a mere coincidence, but it is one whose recurrence I have often marked. At any rate, I know that next morning I awoke, with a sudden instinct consulted my privy counsellor, and was by it informed that five o’clock was yet a few minutes distant. And so I arose, and drew the blind, and looked out upon the still world, in the sharp cool morning air. The light seemed clear and cold, and there was an incessant twitter and loud chirping dialogue of many awakened birds. A thin mist was withdrawing from the fields, and yet lay upon the course of the river. I hastened my dressing, and quietly slid down stairs. How well most of us know the weird strangeness of the house at the early morning hour, when all in it are still asleep, but day is peering in through closed shutters, and above locked doors! The darkling light; the breathing hush; the dog curled on the mat, rising uneasily, and surveying matters suspiciously, but, reassured, settling himself down again with a preliminary shake, when “His sagacious eye an inmate owns”;